Three Livingston County teen girls lock hands, as they have done many times during court hearings during the last eight months. During victim impact statements Oct. 19, 2017, the girls described fear, pain nightmares and anxiety following sexual assault, but also said they have developed a strong friendship during the court process.(Photo: Photo illustration: Gillis Benedict)

Three Livingston County girls described physical and emotional pain, nightmares and missed opportunities as they stood before a juvenile court referee to make victim impact statements in a sexual assault case last week.

They also talked about resilience, friendship and the power of their own voices.

The girls are each part of a petition filed in April in Livingston County Juvenile Court against a now 16-year-old Brighton Township boy. He originally faced 31 felonies, including 20 counts of sexual assault, but ultimately reached a plea agreement on reduced charges. He was sentenced to 45 days in a juvenile facility followed by “intensive probation services,” which could include an outpatient sex offender rehabilitation program.

Before last week's sentencing, the girls and their parents had a formal opportunity to address the court – and the boy – about the effects of the incidents that led to the charges against him.

Because he was charged in juvenile court, the Livingston Daily is not identifying the teen.

The boy pleaded guilty to one charge of first degree criminal sexual conduct against a 13-year-old Brighton girl.

Last week in court, that teen said the boy had been her “best friend” before assaulting her on two occasions in March. The Livingston Daily does not typically identify victims of sexual assault.

“I trusted him with my life,” she said. “I told him everything: all of my secrets, my weaknesses …my fears. He knew about my family and my ambitions.”

The assaults left her “broken, groped and lost in this world,” the girl said during her emotional statement. She said she had to leave school because of bullying, missed end-of-the-year trips with her class and was unable to participate in extracurricular activities.

She said she suffers from anxiety, depression and PTSD and said the incidents affected everyone in her life, including a younger sibling who “wakes up screaming because a bad man hurt” her.

“You didn’t just take my virginity and my sense of safety and innocence, but you took my personality and my light," she said to the boy.

“You will never know what it is like to be mortified of your own bed because that was the room I was raped in."

But she also said she was ready to “take back” her voice and was glad the incidents came to light.

“I said something,” she said. “I stopped you. You may have hurt me … but I am not broken. I am strong and I am capable and loved.”

She also said she and the other two girls named in the sexual assault petitions are “the two strongest girls in the world" and the three are now "the closest of friends."

The girl's mother, like the other parents, also took a turn at the podium, saying until her daughter was assaulted, she never questioned whether she was “good mother.”

“You made me question that,” she told the boy. “I felt like this was my fault. ‘Maybe I am too young to have a teenager, too poor to raise her in Brighton. Maybe I didn't teach her about people like you.’ The one thing I was certain of in life, I questioned. I blamed myself."

'Dignity and grace'

The boy was also accused of sexually assaulting two other girls; those charges were reduced to accosting a minor for immoral purposes in the case of a now-13-year-old Brighton Township girl, and possession of child sexually explicit material in the case of a now-14-year-old girl from rural Livingston County.

The 14-year-old girl, according to court testimony, was the first of the three to be assaulted – in March 2016 – outside a movie theater on a cold night.

"I remember his hands being freezing and thinking how did I get myself into this?" she said. "When we got back to my friend’s house ... I was crying. I thought something was wrong with me. I told my friend's mom what had happened and she didn’t really do anything except tell the other people that went with us not to tell anyone."

She was wracked with guilt, she said, and blamed herself. Her mother had told her she wasn't allowed to see the boy, but at the time she believed she loved him. And he told her he loved her.

The girl's mother said her daughter "cried in her sleep" after she was assaulted.

"She slept with me for months and would wake up crying and asking why someone who said they loved her would do what he did," she said. "She was nervous and did not want to go anywhere without me. Things only got worse. She is having nightmares, she blames herself for not doing more to protect (the other girls)."

The Brighton Township girl, like the others, left the courtroom in tears following the sentence, wondering aloud why she endured eight months of court hearings for "nothing."

During her statement, she said she'd been bullied at school by people who accused her of lying and “ruining” the boy's life with the accusations.

“He ruined my life first,” she said, noting she also thought of him as a close friend – at a time when she had no others. “He took something from me that was supposed to be special.”

Her mother said "no one would ever know the details of the terror and violence" inflicted on her daughter, whose personality changed “dramatically” following the incident.

“But…my daughter knows; my husband and I know,” she said. “We know every morning when the lights are all still on in (her daughter’s) bedroom…when she has nightmares and yells out in her sleep…when she is angry for no reason… when she won’t allow anyone to hug her or touch her…when her grades fluctuate...when her friendships fail for no apparent reason.”

Her father and each of the other parents also commended the girls in court.

"These three girls stood up against everything and did what was right for those that don't have a voice," said the Brighton girl's mother. "They have put up with the bullying and turned the other cheek, they have set their phones down when being threatened over social media. No matter, how angry, how hurt, how sad, they have acted with dignity and grace no matter how hard anyone has tried to take that away from them."

Contact reporter Laura Colvin at 517-552-2848 or lcolvin@livingstondaily.com or follow her on Twitter: @LauraColvin22